Office 2013: The Missing Manual

Chapter 21. Creating a Presentation

Since it first came on the scene in the late 1980s, PowerPoint has forever transformed the way we conduct meetings. Instead of relying on stacks of printed handouts or scrawls on a whiteboard, you create slides to illustrate your points. PowerPoint presentations can contain images, charts, tables, videos, you name it—all of which are ready to come to life thanks to a slew of built-in animations and transition effects. An equal number of delivery options await: Give your slideshow in person or remotely over the Internet, set it up to run continuously (in a tradeshow kiosk, for example), or put it on a website for people to find and view at their own pace.

Meetings have come a long way—and so has PowerPoint. PowerPoint 2013 features the same enhanced, customizable ribbon you find throughout Office 2013, as well as new template choices, theme variations, enhanced design tools, and the ability to use PowerPoint on touch devices, like a Windows 8 tablet. This chapter gets you up to speed, covering the basics of creating, saving, viewing, and printing a presentation.

Creating a New Presentation

When you first open PowerPoint (from the Start screen in Windows 8 or the Start menu in Windows 7), you’ll see its start page (Figure 21-1). This page is your launchpad for your next PowerPoint presentation. It displays templates and themes that you can use to build presentations. Search for a particular theme or template by typing a keyword or two in the Search ...